


Mirror on the Wall

by Mercy_Rhyne



Category: Sanders Sides
Genre: Angst, Lots of Angst, Lots of it, and sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 23:32:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercy_Rhyne/pseuds/Mercy_Rhyne
Summary: After Roman has been absent for a couple of days, Patton decides to visit his room to investigate the situation.





	Mirror on the Wall

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Lots of angst, crying and possible heartbreak. That’s about it.
> 
> Based on a post I found on tumblr

Roman hadn’t been in the common room for a few days and the other sides were starting to worry about him. Not only had they missed his presence for these past days, Thomas had a creative block and couldn’t come up with any idea for a video, short or YouTube. Roman had officially clocked out. That had never happened before.  
At first, the three remaining sides had thought it would pass after a day. That Roman needed a day off, away from all the pressure his job forced onto him. But a day passed and the prince didn’t return. In fact, four days had passed. Roman had never confined himself to his room for this long. Something was wrong.

And so, on the fourth day, Patton decided to check on the creative side. He entered his room and while he did not know what to expect, this wasn’t it. 

The fairy lights that usually bathed the room in light were flickering on and off, hardly giving off any light. Playbills were scattered across the floor. Some posters barely held on to the walls and others littered the ground. It was like the room had seen an apocalypse. 

And in the middle of it all, sat Roman. He sat cross-legged on the floor, his head buried in his hands. Patton could see the prince’s shoulders were shaking from the muffled sobs, and he felt his heart breaking. He carefully stepped closer to the creative side and crouched in front of him. Roman hadn’t noticed the moral side yet; he was too busy with his own thoughts and his own pain.   
“Roman,” Patton whispered as he placed a hand on Roman’s shoulder. The prince flinched and stiffened at the sudden touch. He almost felt embarrassed that he was caught like this and he tried to stifle his sobs.   
“Roman, kiddo,” Patton tried again, “what’s going on?”   
The creative side shrugged and dropped his hands to his knees, still not looking up to meet Patton’s eyes. Patton noticed Roman’s cheeks were red and blotched, and his eyes were bloodshot.   
“Do you want to talk?” The prince shook his head and bit his lip, trying to stop another wave of tears from spilling. This failed, however, and a hand shot up to cover his mouth. 

Patton saw this and immediately wrapped Roman in a tight embrace. One arm wrapped itself around the prince’s waist, while the other supported his head. Roman reacted by wrapping his arms around Patton, holding on to the side as tightly as possible as he broke down in this safe embrace.

Patton’s heart broke as he noticed how devastated Roman was, how much he was hurting. The creative side never showed his weaknesses or his pain, while on the inside, he was slowly falling apart. Until it became too much. 

The fatherly side rubbed Roman’s back soothingly, whispering words of encouragement or singing parts of Disney songs he knew the other loved. He continued this until the other had calmed down again.   
“I’m sorry,” Roman whispered hoarsely as he slowly pulled back from the hug. “I-”  
“Don’t be,” Patton interrupted the prince, “there’s nothing for you to be sorry about.’  
"But I-”  
“No buts, there’s nothing you should be sorry about,” Patton repeated. He slowly got up and looked down at Roman. “You should go sit on the couch, I’ll get you some water, okay?”   
Roman nodded, not meeting the other side’s gaze, and moved to get up while Patton headed for the kitchen. As he got a glass and filled it with water, his mind wandered to something he’d missed in Roman’s room. He had never been here before, but Patton had imagined that Roman would at least hold one mirror in his room, even if it was a handheld one. Roman was Thomas’ ego, after all. He always carried a hairbrush with him and he’d even started wearing make-up. Then why weren’t there any mirrors? It might have been just a small issue, but it was enough to make Patton think.

With these thoughts in his mind, Patton took the glass back to Roman and sat down next to him as Roman drank the liquid, his hands trembling more than they ever had before.  
He sat there in silence as he waited for Roman to finish his drink. As he waited for the other side to start talking. Patton grabbed Roman’s free hand in his and softly hummed a few tunes he remembered. Finally, the prince had emptied the glass and he put it down. Roman turned his head and shot Patton a careful smile. He looked like a mess. His hair looked more like a purple bird"s nest and his face was red and tear-streaked. The bit of mascara and eyeliner he wore had left a deep black trail.  
“Do you want to talk?” Patton asked, as he brushed a few strands of hair out of Roman’s face.   
“What is- what is there to talk a-about?” Roman responded, looking down at his lap again.   
“What happened?” Patton inquired. “Why is your room like this? Why are you crying?”  
“I… don’t know,” the prince answered. Lies. He knew what happened, but he wasn’t going to tell Patton. The man had already seen him cry, that was enough weakness for today. He couldn’t tell Patton why he had broken down. He wasn’t supposed to show weaknesses anyway. He was the _prince_ , he wasn’t supposed to be this weak. All he was supposed to be, was the romantic and cheerful type.   
“Are you sure?”  
Roman nodded in response.   
“I’ll go get your make-up, you need to reapply that. Where do you keep your make-up and your remover?”   
“I-In the bathroom, but-” Before he could finish his sentence, Patton had already left for the bathroom. 

When he got there, the moral trait moved to open one of the drawers, when something caught his eye.  
A deep red blanket was draped around something on the wall. Patton knew he shouldn’t, but his curiosity got the better of him and he removed the blanket. He was faced with a giant mirror. It was mostly covered in dust and a number of cracks - seemingly, someone had punched the object on multiple occasions. Patton looked at the broken mirror and his heart ached. Obviously, this was Roman’s doing. Something was going on with the creative side and no one had noticed, because he chose to hide his pain behind a façade of confidence. But surely, this did not mean that Roman was the confident, untroubled side he pretended to be. He was not as okay as he wanted the others to think. 

With difficulty, Patton managed to cover the mirror with the blanket again. Now, he only had to find the make-up and go back to his friend.

“Roman,” the moral side started as he entered the living room again, “may I ask... why did you cover your mirror?”  
That was the question Roman had feared would come. He had covered up the mirror ages ago, when he got sick of seeing his own face every day. Every time he saw himself, he was reminded of what he was. A failure, a disappointment, a pretentious jerk who couldn’t do anything right. He couldn’t look at himself anymore. He’d only use his mirror when he’d apply his make-up. And that never took long; Roman had trained himself to finish his make-up as soon as possible, so he wouldn’t have to look at himself any longer than necessary.   
Roman let out a soft chuckle in response to Patton’s question.   
“So I don’t have to look at myself anymore,” he muttered softly.   
“What do you mean with that?” Patton asked worriedly as he rushed to the couch, to sit next to the prince again.   
“Exactly what I said,” Roman repeated as he felt tears threatening to spill again.  
“And why would you not want to look at yourself anymore?” Patton questioned. He softly placed a hand on Roman’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him a bit. The prince turned his head and looked at the hand as he replied:   
“Why _would_ I?”   
“Because you look handsome!” the moral side said. “You look amazing! And... aren’t you the one who always brings up self-love?”  
“Yeah but… that doesn’t mean _I_... love myself.” Roman’s voice cracked at the last word. He had told himself he would not talk to Patton about his emotions and insecurities, but with the position they were in and the words Patton had uttered, he couldn’t keep it to himself anymore. Patton embraced Roman again and rubbed circles on his backs.   
“Do you want to talk about _why_ you feel that way?” he tried softly. Roman wrapped his arms around Patton and rested his head on the fatherly side’s shoulder.   
“I,” - he took a deep breath - “I just… can’t help but... feel like I’m constantly disappointing you and- and letting you down.” Patton frowned as he looked down at the man in his arms.   
“Why would you-”  
“I never gave Virgil a chance, I was so horrible to him, I keep distracting Thomas by thinking about his ex too much, I upset Logan, I... can't do anything right.” Roman’s voice cracked again and he buried his face in the grey fabric of Patton’s cardigan.  
“Roman, that’s not true!” Patton said incredulously. “You’re not disappointing me, or anyone else! You admitted your mistakes, right? You’ve seen what you did and you’re kinder to Virgil now. You’re trying, Ro, and that’s all you can do! You could never let me down!”  
“But-”  
“ _Never_.” Roman clutched onto Patton’s shirt like it was his only hope, like he was drowning in a sea of his thoughts and Patton was the only one that could keep his head above the water. The past few days had been so hard on him. He had spent these days all alone in his room, alone with his thoughts. And as his mental state got worse, so did his room. At first, it had been a comfort to look at the posters, the playbills and the soft light of the fairy lights. But as time passed, the lights grew darker, the posters fell down and the playbills were just scraps of paper. 

Patton whispered soft encouragements and compliments in Roman’s ear as he tried to calm the other down. They sat like that for a while, until Roman’s sobbing had ceased and he felt like he was void of all liquid. Patton reluctantly released the prince from his embrace and left the room to bring him another glass of water. He wanted to help the other so badly. Seeing him this… broken, it hurt. It hurt him so much. And he wanted to do anything he could to help, but he didn’t know how he could help. Compliments don’t make someone love themselves. Funny comments and references don’t magically make one feel better. And not permanently. Encouraging words didn’t clear one’s mind. All he could do was talk to Roman and take care of him until he felt better, but Patton wanted to do so much more. He wanted to take away all and every pain the prince felt. Every troubling thought he’d ever had and ever would have. Patton would inflict it all on himself if it meant that Roman would be spared the pain. He’d do anything to make that happen. _Anything_.


End file.
